Danji Brings Bargain Korean, Great Tartare to Broadway: Review

The dinner menu, all 20 items plus their descriptions,
would only fill 7.3 tweets.

The place has just 36 seats, many at the communal counter.
There are no entrees in the traditional sense and although there
is dessert, servers are likely to drop the check before you ask
for sweets.

Every item is a small plate and meals can last under an
hour. No dish exceeds $18. Our party of five ate well and drank
well for $200.

Start with bulgogi sliders, a riff on Korea’s classic soy,
sesame and garlic marinated beef. Kim, a veteran of Daniel and
Masa, takes brisket, roasts the heck out of it and plops it on a
mini pain de mie bun.

Sriracha-spiked mayo adds heat to the sweet-salty mixture.
It crumbles into a fatty, gelatinous mouthful of Asian-American
flavors.

Fried tofu rolls, with just a gentle crunch, are what
vegans dream of when they crave mozzarella sticks. A douse of
ginger scallion dressing zings the neutral pillows.

Low-Cost Reprieve

Danji is a much needed reprieve from Midtown’s ubiquitous
oil-doused Mediterranean restaurants. It’s also a low cost
alternative to the other high-profile Korean restaurant of the
moment -- the $125 per person Jung Sik in TriBeCa. That place
has tablecloths and comfortable chairs. Danji does not.

Bartenders fill a carafe half full with sweet-potato soju
(a distilled drink that’s stronger than sake, weaker than vodka)
and mix it with ginseng-infused rice soju. A single order ($15)
will scrub your tongue of spice throughout the meal.

Now you know what to drink with the “DMZ” ramen, Kim’s
hat tip to the 38th parallel. The soup, a combustible mix of
fermented kimchi, SPAM luncheon meat, pork belly and hot dogs,
heats up noodles just enough to let them soak up the juices.

Kim takes a less smoky approach to barbecue than his
neighbors in Koreatown, slow cooking short ribs till they fall
apart with the tap of a chopstick. Wash down the traditional soy
and mirin braise with a flinty, structured Alsatian riesling.

Work In Progress

Danji is still something of a work in progress, and that’s
okay given the prices.

Does Kim’s yellowtail with jalapeno have that same
signature sting as at Gari? No, but the fish has a fresh oceanic
oiliness.

Korean fried chicken is famous for its addictive, phyllo-
like crust. Here, the so-called “KFC” wings are closer to any
respectable version around town.

Bossam, braised pig with cabbage wraps, doesn’t have the
same chewy skin as Momofuku’s $200 version -- hardly a deal
breaker since the sharable dish is $18 here. Avoid pork belly
buns, whose natural high-fat levels are sent into overdrive with
a slick of mayo. And kimchi paella is unappealingly mushy.

And yet beef tartare, sold-out on three of four visits, is
one of the city’s best. Toasted pine nuts, sesame oil and pear
add sensuous fruit to a dice of raw beef.

Ask a server whether you should order dessert and he shakes
his head. Take his advice.